The Last Stormlord (43 page)

He continued to wend his way downwards, hoping to get to an area that felt more familiar to someone brought up in the poverty of the Gibber. Out in the palm groves, perhaps. He’d read something once about cities having fringe dwellers and the waterless.

It was nightfall by the time he reached the thirty-sixth level. It didn’t take long for him to recognise it for exactly what it was: home for people similar to those who lived in the hovels outside Wash Drybone Settle. On a large scale of course, but the same for all that. He saw replicas of the house he had lived in, doubles of Marisal the stitcher, of Galen the sot. He glimpsed people who could have been family to Demel the widow and Ore the stone-breaker. Grubby thin children with hungry eyes not unlike the child he had once been.

He didn’t know whether to be relieved that Taquar’s harsh rule had not rid the world of the obviously waterless, or distressed that right here in a rainlord’s city were people as poor as his own family had been. He recognised the smell of poverty and hopelessness, of the dirt and the decay that wallowed in its wake. It had been there in Wash Drybone Settle. Here it was just bigger, dirtier, more violent.

I am not the only one Taquar has failed
, he thought, depressed.

He looked around for somewhere to rest.

*   *   *

He slept that night behind a heap of discarded bab husks, his bag serving as a pillow.

In the morning, he sold one of the books for five tokens. He had no idea of its real value, but he had learned enough from the bargaining of Reduner caravanners to be aware that the Scarperman who bought it was probably robbing him blind.

He used part of one of the tokens to buy hot food served on a yam leaf, and he squatted right there in front of the stall to eat. The woman selling the food was a motherly soul and, on finding out during a lull in her trade that Shale was new to Scarcleft, indeed to the Scarpen, she took it upon herself to give him advice on where to live and how to take care of himself. Her name, she said, was Illara. She suffered from what they called desert peel back in Wash Drybone Settle. She had no eyelashes and no eyebrows, and her skin flaked. Rendered pede fat was needed to cure that, but he doubted she had the money to buy any.

“Don’t you trust nobody,” she said. “Nobody. Not me, neither. In this place, a man or a woman or a child will sell his granny for water, and don’t you never forget it.”

From her, he found out that for just three tinnies a night, you could rent a place to sleep on a rooftop, along with a palliasse stuffed with bab husks, and have your safety guaranteed by the owner’s bodyguards. He found out there were labouring jobs to be had in the bab groves or at the city’s pede stables; or at the pede market, shovelling manure; or at the metal smelters or the knackery—all of which were situated just outside the city gates. He learned where to buy the cheapest food, where to leave his bag (for a price) so that it would be safe until he came to collect it, where to sell stolen goods. She warned him which people never to deal with, which employers never to work for, and which places and street women to avoid. She told him how to identify authorities: the reeves, and—worse, or so she said—the enforcers in blue with the sand swirls on their chests.

“You break a law here on Level Thirty-six, no one cares, unless it concerns city water. You can steal or cheat or kill, and no one will come after you. But if you break a law on another level, or if you steal the water that belongs to the city or the groves or an upleveller—then you had better find a good place to hide because sooner or later someone will come after you. And there’s never no mercy for outlanders.” She looked at him critically. “That’s a bit of a disadvantage to start with.”

“What is?” he asked.

“You look like a Gibberman. Lately the reeves have been throwing waterless Gibber folk out of the city gates and not letting ’em back in again, ’specially the ones that look real poor or dirty or diseased.” She rubbed at the flaking skin on her face. “They’re dying out there. The Highlord of Scarcleft wants to save water for those Scarpermen entitled to water allotments. Us waterless count for even less than usual now that water is short. And Gibber waterless are as hated as ’Baster waterless. So you’d better watch yourself. You go outside to work, you make sure the employer gives you an employment chit. That will entitle you to sleep in the city for a night. You got a job, they need you. They don’t need you, you’re dead. Get it?”

Shale nodded, wondering if life was playing a joke on him. Was his imprisonment going to be the high point of comfort in what promised to be a short existence? Had he been sandcrazy to run away? Taquar would never have
hurt
him, after all, just used him.

And then he thought of Mica.

And Citrine.

His heart hardened.
I don’t know what to do
, he thought,
but I do know what I
don’t
want to do. I don’t want to work for the Highlord of Scarcleft. Ever.

He left the city that morning and found work shovelling sand out of a dry slot in the palm groves. Hard, aching work under a hot sun. Payment for the whole day’s labour was half a token plus a day’s water ration, drawn from the employer’s cistern. At the end of the day, he was sore all over from the unaccustomed labour. And he had seen for himself what happened to Scarcleft water thieves.

Zigger-wielding officials on their way into the desert had led a couple past, their arms ending at the wrist, the fresh cuts dipped into heated resin to stop the bleeding. They stumbled by, moaning, tied by a length of hemp to the pedes the officials rode. Shale doubted they would be alive even at sunset, let alone find a way to survive till they reached another city. This wasn’t punishment; it was brutal execution.

He rested awhile under the palm trees once he was paid—eyed suspiciously by the palm-grove guards before he started to walk back towards the city through the grove. He had lingered deliberately because he wanted to be on his own. He’d heard about an irrigation slot that would be flooded at sunset, and he wanted to steal enough water to refill his water skin. Being waterless all his life had left him without guilt when it came to stealing a drink. Still, it was hard not to think of the fate of the two thieves.

It was easier for him not to get caught, of course. All he had to do was walk along the irrigation slots with his container uncorked, then move water out of the flow, a few unnoticed drops at a time, until the skin bulged.

Taquar did at least teach me something useful
, he thought as he ambled back in the twilight, filching water as he went.

When a mounted rider approached him from behind, he took extra care to hide what he was doing, apparently in vain, because as the pede drew level, a perplexed voice addressed him, “Well, young man, just what might ye be up to?”

He jumped and nearly dropped the skin. He turned to see a ’Baster mounted on a white myriapede, leading a packpede, also white, behind him.

Scarpen Quarter

Scarcleft City

Level 36 and the bab groves

The ’Baster, obviously a trader, was alone. The white packpede was piled high with roped cargo, still dusty from desert travel. Although the goods were covered with woven matting, their shape suggested blocks of rock salt. Like all ’Basters, the man was pale, as pale as a mother’s milk, with eyes as light as star-shine. He wore white robes and a loose twist of white cloth encased his head; both were sewn with tiny mirrors that reflected the red light of the setting sun in sparkles as he rode. The red thread that held the mirrors in place could have been crazed runnels of blood on the white cloth.

The man smiled as he drew his hack up opposite Shale. “Let me offer ye a ride back into the city,” he said.

Shale, surprised, found himself stuttering.

“But perhaps ye had better cork your skin first.”

In a mixture of embarrassment and fear, Shale fumbled to close his water skin.

The ’Baster reached out a hand to pull him up onto the saddle behind and because he didn’t know how to refuse, Shale took it and climbed up.

“What’s your name?” the man asked. He spoke with the lilting accent of the White Quarter, chopping his vowels short and almost singing the words.

“Jasper, pedeman,” Shale said, changing his name yet again.

“And would Jasper like to be telling me why a water sensitive of considerable skill finds it necessary to be stealing water from a slot?”

“I—” But Shale’s inventiveness failed there, and he didn’t know what to say.

“I would have thought that the Scarpen Quarter, in need of all the water sensitives it could get, would pay them well enough that they didn’t have to steal.” The words might have carried an element of accusation, but the tone was mild, even friendly.

Shale, not trusting, stayed silent.

“Don’t worry, young Jasper,” the man said softly, “I’ll not tell the reeves. Are ye waterless?”

Shale nodded. “Who—who are you, pedeman?”

“Feroze Khorash, salt merchant of Alabaster.”

“Alabaster?”

“Yes, the place ye call the White Quarter. But we are a quarter of nothing. We are our own entirety.”

“Oh, you mean you’re a ’Baster.” He wasn’t sure he understood the rest.

“That is not a word we appreciate. We are Alabasters.”

“Forgive me, pedeman. Um, merch. I did not mean to be rude.” That was true. He’d no idea that inhabitants of the White Quarter regarded the term ’Baster as derogatory.

As they reached the city gates, Shale prepared to slip down from the mount, but Feroze stopped him with a hand on the knee. “I am going to Level Twenty-seven, where there is a salt trading house. I shall pay ye a token to be helping me unload the salt. Easier work than whatever it was ye were doing in the grove, I’ll wager ye.”

Shale weighed the idea carefully. He felt vulnerable leaving the lowest level for a higher one, but a token was a token. “All right,” he said.

They were stopped by the gate guards, as expected. Shale produced the employer’s chit from the grove owner while Feroze was asked to pay an import tax on the salt. “And you are only permitted to stay three nights in the city now, ’Baster,” one of the gatekeepers told the merchant. “New rule for all outlander traders. And you must leave by this gate.” Feroze made the required payment and they were waved on into the city.

It was obvious that Feroze had been to Scarcleft before. He guided the pedes straight up to the twenty-seventh level and then on to the salt merchant’s yard through a maze of streets and alleys. On several of the lower levels, men spat at the feet of the pede as they passed. On the thirtieth level, some boys pelted them with discarded bab husks and called them bastard ’Basters and dirty foreign water-wasters. Feroze ignored them all.

At the salt yard gate, he pulled the bell and waited patiently until the summons was answered. The gatekeeper greeted him by name, the salt trader was sent for, and Feroze and Shale dismounted to lead the pedes into the yard. The trader arrived, profuse in his greetings as he offered the ritual drink of water to an arriving traveller. Then, when the formalities were over, a specimen block of salt was unloaded and examined, and the bargaining began. Shale stood to one side, holding the pede reins, listening and watching and taking the opportunity to study Feroze.

He was tall and thin, and to Shale’s eyes ugly. The pale skin was sickly; the bloodless lips unattractive and the faded eyes lifeless. In fact, his general lack of hue suggested coldness or an absence of passion, and reminded Shale of something dead. It was hard to guess his age, but he was no longer a young man.

“They say they have water in their veins,” a voice murmured in his ear. He turned to see one of the salt merchant’s lads standing behind him. “ ’Stead of blood, and that’s why they’re that funny colour. That right, you reckon?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and then added carefully, “I don’t think it matters much. He is a man, no matter the colour of his blood.” Inside, he wondered if it was true.

The youth looked at him scornfully. “Yeah, I s’pose you would say that. You’re a dirty desert-grubbin’ Gibberman, after all. You might think you’re as good as us, but you’re not. No Gibber sand-grubber nor ’Baster is as good as the lick of a tongue of a Scarperman!”

“No? Well, I can’t say I think much of either your manners or your brains,” Shale returned. “At least I know how to be polite, and I have enough brains to know it’s not sensible to insult the people your master does business with.”

The youth opened his mouth to retort, and Shale raised his eyebrows, which was enough to make the fellow think twice about saying anything more. He swaggered off.

The negotiations came to an end, the two men shook hands on the deal, and Feroze came back to Shale. “Time to be unloading,” he said. “I’ll see ye afterwards.”

He went off with the salt trader to be paid, and Shale turned back to the pede. To his surprise, the beast was now surrounded by the salt trader’s workers, who had the ropes untied and the big blocks of wrapped salt unloaded in just a few moments. It dawned on Shale that Feroze must have known that the salt trader’s men would unload the cargo; why, then, had he asked for help? He thought about that and began to feel uncomfortable. He wondered if it was wise to wait for his token, especially when he had done nothing yet to earn it.